


Out, Damned Spot

by cookingwithcyanide



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence, ROLL CALL:, a little nod to atlas shrugged?, a significant scene in an olive grove, and War, and whats that?, androcles and the lion, cookies to anyone who can tell the class what it is, fuck ayn rand but on jod its THERE, i got over writers block for my birthday, if you close one eye and barely read it you get a sense of the distaste for capitalism, if you look closely you can sense a distaste for capitalism, in essence this is just some backstory and introspection on robotnik, judas' betrayal of christ, my disgraced catholic self is uhh, not quite an olive garden but-, not wholly comfortable with all the connections i made between bot and jesus, robotnik is sad and angry and full of regrets, some macbeth, stone as androcles; robotnik as the lion, stone wants to help him, the event in his past he discusses is a Real Historical EventTM, the imagery is nice though, welcome to Unexplained Allusions with Me, you dont need to look all that close actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24088753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookingwithcyanide/pseuds/cookingwithcyanide
Summary: There is blood on his hands. There is not really blood on his hands, but still he knows, always, that it is there. It is ground into the stained skin of his knuckles, dripping from his palms like Christ crucified for sins against his State, like the lion baleful and Androcles rent by his claws. He wants to howl for the pain of the thorn in his paw.
Relationships: Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik/Agent Stone
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	Out, Damned Spot

**Author's Note:**

> It sure has been a long month hasn't it? Or very short, depending on how you look at it. I've missed you all.  
> This is a brief idea for Robotnik's history and childhood I've had for a while now and finally had inspiration to write out. The old Greek fables and biblical parallels and Shakespeare didn't come in until later, but things like that tend to when I've got pen to paper.  
> The title is from Macbeth: "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him."

There is blood on his hands. There is not really blood on his hands, but still he knows, always, that it is there. It is ground into the stained skin of his knuckles, dripping from his palms like Christ crucified for sins against his State, like the lion baleful and Androcles rent by his claws. He wants to howl for the pain of the thorn in his paw. 

He dreams of fire raining from the sky. Ash like filthy snow drifts behind his eyes when he sleeps, stinging his bare skin when the dog-breath wind stirs it, like bitter black pepper in the hot stew of the wet August night, of sour smoke, of jagged glass like diamonds in the streets. He only just remembers fleeting words in a language long forgotten, and a voice lost longer ago still-  _ Prosím zapomeňte na tento můj darling, ale nezapomeňte, že miluji vás.  _ He does not forget. He seldom remembers.

Agent Stone knows more about him than perhaps anyone else, after years in such proximity. Robotnik knows that he has been reading the curve of his spine, the click of his teeth, the rhythm of his breathing. What must he decipher, in Robotnik’s disparaging of his superiors, in the sick curl of his lip when he receives orders, in the careful rigidity of his shoulders when he sends his war machines to keep the peace? Stone is keen, so much more clever than he lets on. There’s no way he doesn’t see right through Robotnik’s veneer of condescension, pride, and what might pass for hubris in a man less worn and frayed. What does Stone really see in the sheen of sweat across his forehead and the tremble in his hands when Robotnik spins excuses and vitriol in waves, absolutely refusing to step foot in Prague, United Nations summit be damned?

His clever agent, his Androcles, and yet surely too his Judas waiting in the grove. Robotnik wouldn’t fault him if he chose to expose his weakest points in exchange for his 30 pieces of silver. Probably a medal too, for putting down a treasonous beast before it turned on its captors, bit the hands that fed it disdain, and fear, and capital only so long as he served his purpose. He knows that he is a working animal; a guard dog and lab rat to be given only enough rope to hang himself with when he inevitably burns out. And how could he blame Stone for his betrayal, when Robotnik would rather bare his canines and snarl a fount of abuse rather than let Stone get close enough to him to see his soft belly, the chinks in his old armor. He has seen the deftness and precision with which his agent’s hands can dismantle and clean lethal firearms. He has heard the quiet confidence he has in diffusing all manner of altercations with his low, staid words alone. Stone could coax the wretched thorns from him if he let him, and soothe his overwrought mind all the while. Too many times, when the echoes of machine gunfire and the terrible shriek of metal crumpling under the treads of tanks keep him from rest, when he is congratulated for the casualties of a job well done, he is tempted to lower the braced portcullis of his bitter retorts and rejection and beg Stone to come in close enough to know him truly, to provide clarity to what he is left questioning of the cavernous spaces deep inside Robotnik that his perception cannot reach, to be laid bare and judged for the Saints of his parents, for the mass of his own sins.

Sometimes he gets so far as to catch Stone’s eye and allow a few feeble words to stumble over the barricade of his teeth before he catches his impetuous tongue. He will not betray himself; he knows too well that Stone should follow close behind.

Oh, but he is tired. He is old, and he feels so much older than he is. Years weigh on his shoulders like Atlas, and how he yearns to shrug. His perfect track record is his pride and his punishment, his crown, and it keeps him ensnared with its thorns. Men like him don’t get to retire. There is always more work to be done, more mountains to move, more blood to shed. Robotnik thinks of Stone standing in the dappled light of an olive grove when they passed through Iran for some futile attempt at armistice the year before. The high, unforgiving sun had made Stone’s eyes shine like ichor and his skin glow warm and golden. He had wondered at the softness of Stone’s lips. 

A week later, the grove was razed by the onslaught of men with their guns and their convictions. Peace talks had disintegrated with much vigor and cacophony. Robotnik can’t begin to remember now what either side was fighting for. It hardly mattered; they all fell the same when he sent in his drones. Robotnik had thought of Stone smiling at something he’d said between the trees just days before. He spread napalm and fire without distinction and swallowed his decades-old remorse. There is nowhere else for it to go, but to fester bilious in his chest where it has sat heavy since he was a child, since he first knew what it was to have his life wrenched away, by the same men and the same convictions. It never matters what they do it for. It is always the same. He hears again that voiceless spectre in his mind, whose visage wore away decades ago,  _ Prosím zapomeňte na tento můj darling, ale nezapomeňte, že miluji vás. _ How could he ever forget. There was nothing left to remember.

There is so much blood on his hands. He scrubs them raw and still the blood remains, a stain, an affront. It drips from his fingers which have orchestrated the desecration of countless unremembered men. It seeps into his dreams, pooling on sticky asphalt around the body of a woman who loved him, who has lost her voice, her face, her name to the cold wastes of decrepit time and old anguish. He should be crucified for all the ways he’s betrayed her. His agent, his forsworn Androcles, whose eyes that pierce clean into the very heart of him have no lust for silver, stands behind him. He has been wounded for so long. He wants to howl for the pain of the thorn in his paw.

**Author's Note:**

> "Prosím zapomeňte na tento můj darling, ale nezapomeňte, že miluji vás." -Czech for "Please forget this my darling, but remember that I love you."
> 
> I got out my bible, my book of Aesop's fables, and a dusty old tome on soviet history for this one. Like I said, cookies to any of you who know the event referenced- I like to think it makes a good backstory for Robotnik, even if it sways him a little older than the movie said he is. RIP to canon anyways, I'm different.


End file.
